


Vandalism

by CrumblingAsh



Series: Choke [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Infidelity, Infidelity, Inspired By Tumblr, M/M, Not Hulkeye, Poor Bruce, Poor Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-21 04:55:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3678366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrumblingAsh/pseuds/CrumblingAsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce makes a mistake.</p><p>Tony deserves it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

_‘I cheated on you.’_

 

From the doorway of the workshop, Bruce watches Tony’s mind push intelligence from his fingers, watches display screens light up with information faster than he can blink, watches him bounce between project after project without skipping a beat. He’s lit up in futuristic blue, Tony, but it’s more than the bathing light of his screens that shines on his face. He’s happy, near-literally within his element, completely at ease. He’s beautiful, so God-damned beautiful, that it takes Bruce’s breath away like a solid punch to the gut.

 

_‘I cheated on you,’_ he thinks, wills Tony to hear, because he’s too cowardly to say the damned words. _‘I cheated on you. I took another man to my bed while you were out saving the world. I took him to my bed and I kissed him on my pillows and I fucked him on my sheets and I didn’t throw him out after. You’re perfect, you’re so good to me, you give up so much for me, try to make yourself worthy for me, and I betrayed you.’_

 

It hadn’t meant anything, him and Clint. Just a rush of adrenaline, a fuel of exhaustion that led to lust. It had been fucking. There had been no love in it, no desire, nothing more than physical need and the touch of a friend. Days ago. Nothing more.

 

It isn’t an excuse.

 

_‘I’m sorry.’_

 

Tony turns before Bruce can think to back away, and the delighted smile that splits across his face tears at Bruce’s heart. Because Tony … Tony hadn’t smiled like that for a long time, not after Pepper, not before Bruce had pinned him against the wall and done absolutely nothing else except cover his face with tender kisses and repeated “I love you, I love you, I love you”-

 

“Hey!” The older man calls cheerfully. “Get in here, gorgeous,don‘t be a creeper. Come look at this thing I made. Am making. Will be mak- it’s on the screen, it’s all but physical, what-the-fuck ever. It’s for you! And Hulk. Spoiler alert, you wear them and they rhyme with ‘ants’.”

 

His rambling is like a rope around Bruce’s waist, reels him in without forgiveness. _‘I don’t deserve you.’_ His stomach twists in anguish. _‘I don’t deserve you at all.’_

 

“What brings you down here, anyway? I didn’t call you,” Tony needles, grabbing at his arm to pull him the rest of the way, smacking an exaggerated kiss on his cheek as he does. “Thought you had a project?”

 

_‘I betrayed you, Tony.’_

 

Bruce opens his mouth.

 

_‘I fucked Clint. I cheated on you, you didn’t deserve it, you’re worth so much more than anything anyone has ever done to you — more than I’ve done to you.’_ **_(He wouldn’t believe it. Bruce is Tony, Tony is Bruce. He wouldn’t believe it)._**

 

Tony tilts his head, eyes beginning to narrow.

 

“I missed you, that’s all.”

 

The flush on Bruce’s face burns of shame and not embarrassment. Tony’s eyes soften, having no reason not to trust a word he says.

 

“Sap,” the man accuses softly.

 

Bruce is a fucking coward.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

 

When you spend your life growing under the shadow of a careless father, under the greedy eyes of hungry reporters, under the cold hands of would-be friends who know the value of money, you quickly learn the ways body language can speak.

 

And so Tony hears it, as clearly as if it had been shouted in his ear, when Bruce moves around Clint in the kitchen.

 

It’s fast, like the flip of a switch that opens a dam. No matter how long it’s been, how often he’s touched, Bruce is still cautious around physical contact from anyone but Tony (and even then, still sometimes Tony). He’s careful of his space, of maintaining a distance, of keeping casual touches to non-existence and smiles apologetic. It’s his trademark, his classic mannerisms, a quirk Tony has fallen for despite himself.

 

But when Clint accidentally steps back just as Bruce is passing behind him, when their bodies brush a little harder than a whisper and Bruce doesn’t flinch back and mumble good-natured apologies with that smile, it’s not the same. It’s not the same, and Tony knows.

 

He’s swallowed ice. He’s swallowed ice and it’s encasing his insides and he keeps smiling, doesn’t so much as twitch as the two keep moving by each other without more than a friendly murmur.

 

_‘What did I do?’_ His heart demands through his pulse, anxious and afraid. _‘What did I do?’_

 

He grins when Clint slides him a plate of eggs, mouths off something he doesn’t actually hear himself say, winks when Bruce shoots him a look of exasperation in a mock glare. At least, he think it’s a mock glare.

 

He’s been wrong, obviously. Because clearly he’s done something, something he hadn’t thought was wrong at all, pushed Bruce just enough away. Of course he has, he always has - what was it Pepper had told him, that final night? “You’re too much to love like this, Tony. There’s too much of you that’s already covered, for me to cover you.”

 

“Tony?” Bruce is calling to him; there’s a funny frown on his face, that had used to be one of concern but is probably annoyance. He remembers annoyance. “What is it?”

 

Bruce is perfection incarnate, beauty hidden under rage and self-loathing, under dismissal and faded scars. Bruce is the only thing that strung Tony together, when Pepper had gently pulled out his insides and left them on the floor. Gentleness and patience and nothing more than the expressed desire to see Tony smile again, soothing kisses and tingling caresses and slow, hard sex and _love_ -

 

_Goddamn, does Tony fucking love him._

 

He makes his grin wider, uses the stretching pain to make a mask, and lifts his mug of coffee to his mouth. Ignores the eggs and the smell they give.

 

“I should make the pants purple,” he replies proudly, at just the right pitch.

 

Doesn’t wince at the stabbing of blunt pain in the center of his body when Bruce sighs and Clint snorts -- the coffee burns his tongue.

 


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

 

 

When Tony flinches away from the mug of coffee he offers, Bruce knows that he knows.

 

_(“It’s,” Tony waved his hand, “stupid. It’s just … people have … hurt me, I guess. Led me places when I was drunk. Drugs – shit that absorbs through the skin. Someone gave me a chem bomb once, that was fun. Shaking on dirty deals, signing shitty contracts. Trust. I think the psychiatrist I had when I was twelve said I had trust issues. Howard paid fifteen-hundred for that answer.”)_

He steps back, the mug still in his hand, and Tony’s carrying on about his project as if nothing had happened. Lips moving so fast Bruce can’t keep track of what he’s saying – or maybe it’s the sudden ocean of _nothing_ deafening his ears, that he’s stepped from solid ground an into an ocean of emptiness he’s drowning in. It _hurts,_ he’s _bleeding_ , he’s stabbed himself with his own damn knife and the fire racing through his body wants him to do it again, again, fuck you Banner, what have you done?-

 

“Tony.” It comes out ragged, as if he’s speaking over water in his throat though there’s nothing to swallow. The smile turned toward him is fast and fake, God, God, God- “You _know_ -.”

 

“That I’m brilliant?” Tony chirps, pure deflection. “Yes. Hey, put that coffee down here, I want it. Or I think I want it. It’s not decaf, is it? Pft, what am I saying, of course it’s not, seriously, _put it down,_ Banner _._ Or I’ll make these pants yellow. With polka dots. I swear.”

 

Tears tear at Bruce’s eyes as he does exactly that, puts the coffee down and watches as the other snatches it up, drinking it like everything’s normal. The workshop’s air is stale and Bruce has never really seen this Tony before. Not here, with his tools and screens and robots, his sanctuary. Not with _Bruce_.

 

 _‘How do you know?’_ He wants to ask. _‘How did you find out?’_ Doesn’t, because he doesn’t have the right to. _‘Why couldn’t you have waited to find out, waited for me to tell you?’_

_‘I’m sorry,’_ he wants to say. _‘Baby,’_ because Tony loves to be called that. _‘It meant nothing, I fucking swear_ ,’ because it’s true. _‘I love you,’_ because Tony smiles so… hell, so peacefully, when he hears it. Like he believes it. Believes a liar, because that’s what Bruce is. And now Tony knows.

 

“Tony,” he tries again instead, pleading, and what? What Banner, what could you possibly have to say? What can you ask from him? “I-.”

 

“ _No!_ ”

 

It’s **_violent_**.

 

Bruce’s responding flinch is twice as fierce as Tony’s from before, so harsh that he stumbles back a few steps, tries to right his world (because he _has no right_ ) to a stereo of rapid cursing, the shrieking screech of a chair on cement, a strong hand wrapping firmly around his elbow, steadying him.

 

“Shh, Bruce.” Tony’s voice is soft, a little panicked in his ear. “Shh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell, shh.” The palm of another hand is rubbing strongly over his shoulders. _Why?_ “You’re okay, gorgeous. It’s okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

 

“Tony,” he moans, because no. No. This, this is exactly it. Exactly what Bruce had known would happen. He pulls away, tries to leave, but the grip is just below desperate, locking. He can’t breathe and he shouldn’t have the chance to. “Tony, _no_.”

 

Who’s shaking, him or Tony? Who’s breaking, drowning, dying, _him or Tony?_   “It’s okay, Bruce.”


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 

 

_‘I love you.’_

Tony tumbles Bruce down into his sheets, tries to keep his movements soft and easy instead of the forceful and needy that they always are. He looks amazing, warm and naked against the smooth white and wrinkled fabric, immediately cocooned in the sea of pillows. His lips are swollen, bitten red because _Tony can’t stop,_ but his eyes are still desolate, staring into him with guilt.

 

Guilt is an emotion he’s familiar with, and on Bruce’s face it’s twisted wrong. It’s as if his memory and his present have collided, as if he’s taken those poisonous thoughts that mold in the back of his mind and painted this man’s body with it, kissed him with it, filled his body with every drop until all that was left to lay before him is a drowning husk.

 

Large hands reach up, move to touch him, fingers tracing down his arms with a reverent timidity, _afraid to touch him_ , _feeling his needs to_.

 

 “Tony,” Bruce whispers, sounding wounded, sounding just beneath desperate. It makes him shiver. “You did nothing wrong. _You didn’t do anything wrong_.”

 

He leans down, nips at the other man’s lips again as they kiss.

 

Of course he has.

 

_‘I love you,’_ he doesn’t say. Bruce’s lips are yielding to his own. _‘I fucking love you. I want you to love me. I’m sorry, I’m sorry can you forgive me?’_

 

“I want you to fuck me,” he growls into Bruce’s mouth, and instantly tries to suck it back in – soft, easy _, soft, easy_. “Please,” he tries again, makes the kiss tender. “Please, Bruce, please.”

 

“Tony-.”

 

“ _Please._ ”

 

Eventually, in the end, Tony ruins everything he touches. He’s realized this now; has remembered it. It’s not even an effort, he doesn’t have to try, doesn’t have to think about it or intend the harm. Some people are smart enough to walk away, to leave before they fall to it. Jarvis had known, so had his mother, and Pepper – God, Pepper is so beautiful, so clever, of course he had remembered what he had forgotten, of course she had left. Bruce, though.

 

Angry, careful Bruce, who wraps an arm around his waist and flips them smoothly, because it’s what Tony wants, because _he feels guilty_. Bruce is too self-loathing to see, too convinced that he deserves nothing good in this world. He latches onto Tony, because Tony is a kindness to him, doesn’t hurt him or hate him or abuse him. But just because something isn’t harming you, doesn’t mean it’s good for you. He doesn’t walk away, doesn’t leave, because he doesn’t know he can – reaches out and lets go of anything that can save him, because he thinks it’s wrong. Better than him and what he deserves. **Tony knows this – he is Bruce, Bruce is him. He knows this.**

 

He closes his eyes against the Bruce’s teeth on his neck, his chest, the feel of a tentative finger and hot skin _. ‘I love you,’_ isn’t fair to say. _‘I need you,’_ is pathetic, disgusting, wrong. _‘I’m sorry’_ – his hips arch of their own accord as one finger becomes more – _‘You deserve better than me. You were right to take it. I’m sorry.’_

 

“ ** _Tony_** ,” Bruce practically sobs, sounds so damn broken as he replaces his fingers with himself, because _it’s what Tony wants_.

 

He hides the apologies under a long, drawn out moan – blocks Bruce’s motivating, eating guilt with his eyelids and denial.

 

Tony’s too damn selfish.

**Author's Note:**

> I was prompted by anonymous on [tumblr](http://ashnapalm.tumblr.com/post/115382761869/23-things-you-said-after-you-betrayed-me) off a list, which said "things you said, after you betrayed me Tony/Bruce, Clint/Bruce". I answered (chapter one), and then received another anonymous request for a sequel, and then an actual shortish story formed in my head, and, well...
> 
> This.


End file.
